Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 7 (P. Oxy. 7) is a papyrus found at Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. It was discovered by Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt in 1897, and published in 1898. It dates to the third century AD.[1] The papyrus is now in the British Library.[2]

P. Oxy. 7

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 7 was the first non-biblical papyrus from the site to be published.[3] It preserves part of a poem by the archaic Greek poet Sappho.[a][3] When the papyrus was first published, Grenfell and Hunt wrote that "it is not very likely that we shall find another poem of Sappho". In 1906, however, a major cache of literary fragments from the remains of two private libraries were discovered – the source of the majority of the Sappho fragments discovered at Oxyrhynchus.[4]

Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 7 measures 19.7 cm × 9.6 cm, and is written in an uncial hand.[5] Parts of twenty lines of a poem written in Sapphic stanzas survive, with one and a half feet missing from the beginning of each line.[6]

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ The poem preserved is Sappho 5 in Voigt's numeration.

References edit

  1. ^ Grenfell, B. P.; Hunt, A. S. (1898). Oxyrhynchus Papyri I. London. p. 11.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  2. ^ P. Oxy. 7 at the Oxyrhynchus Online
  3. ^ a b Obbink, Dirk (2014). "Two New Poems by Sappho". Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. 189: 32–49. JSTOR 23850358.
  4. ^ Williamson, Margaret (1995). Sappho's Immortal Daughters. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. p. 48. ISBN 9780674789135.
  5. ^ Grenfell, B. P.; Hunt, A. S. (1898). Oxyrhynchus Papyri I. London. pp. 10–11.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  6. ^ Grenfell, B. P.; Hunt, A. S. (1898). Oxyrhynchus Papyri I. London. p. 10.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

External links edit

  • "Papyrus 739". Digitised Manuscripts. British Library. Archived from the original on 23 December 2019. Retrieved 31 August 2021.

  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainB. P. Grenfell; A. S. Hunt (1898). Oxyrhynchus Papyri I. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.